The collected, jumbled ramblings of…

Writing Diary – Rejection, Hiatus and Shorts

Well it’s been some time since I added a writing update post to here. When last we left things I’d submitted The Things We Lose to the Screenwriting Goldmine competition way back in February. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t successful and didn’t even make the long-list of finalists. Of course I’m very disappointed with this and I think it’s highlighted something for me regarding competitions in that I didn’t receive any kind of feedback on my entry. I believe this may have been available had I paid extra, but not being a bottomless pit of money I shall forever be in the dark about why my script didn’t cut it. Was it no good? Was it simply not up to the standard of the other entrants? Was it not what the judges were looking for? Who can say. Without wanting to sound petulant, not even making the long-list did knock me back somewhat but I’ve regained perspective – there’s a lot of entries for the judges to look at so of course not everything is going to make it. I’ll likely try another competition with The Things We Lose somewhere further down the line. I still feel strongly enough about the story that I want to try and get it out there somehow.

So my writing isn’t the only thing that’s taken a hiatus. Due to some seismic real-life events we’ve had to suspend projects at ShortOrme productions – sadly this also means we’ve had to completely cancel our film Duality for the time being as we’re losing a key location for the shoot. It would be easy to think of this as a waste of time but we had a lot of fun shooting the film up to now and we’ve learned a lot during that time. Hopefully we can come out of the back of this and move on to other projects.

Speaking of other projects, I’m continuing with my rewrite of Perpetrator – I’ve found some interesting angles for the main characters which has helped get some perspective with where the story needs to go. It’s taking time as I’m still trying to find a couple of voices, but I’m positive it’s heading in the right direction. In the meantime I’m looking at short form scripts again. I’ve fished out an old story I worked on from an idea by Jonny Orme, a black comedy set on an allotment called Blood N’ Spuds. It’s got the potential for an interesting cast with some dark little twists. I’m looking to start working on that soon. I’m also looking towards some more bitesized pieces, single location skits with small casts similar to a film we shot way back in 2013, The Whole Truth (I’ve embedded it below). It can be a challenge to write these five to ten page stories and it’s something I miss; it should also be a great opportunity to get some material written for when ShortOrme comes out of hiatus!

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As you can probably tell from the massively eclectic nature of this website I tend to spread myself across a lot of disciplines, sometimes successfully, sometimes... not so much! This sidebar is representative of that and is a collection of links where you can find more of my work online. Go forth and explore! If you like what you see, don't forget to get in touch!